Apples to Oranges

So, a series of weird things happened this week.  First, Seth asked if Jim and I had plans for Friday.  Of course, I asked why, quickly followed by the inevitable question "are you planning a party?"  This was on Monday.  Thursday, Thomas said something about cooking dinner on Friday.  "For all of us?"  "Well, that's a lot of pressure, but sure."

Chris, as usuall, arrived promptly after school, so I came home to one cooking, and all three boys talking nerd.  One day, I will miss these meetings of the minds, because it's kind of fun when everyone is in the kitchen talking, no matter the subject.  Anyway, Jim arrived shortly after, and I discovered that really, no cooking was going on.  I knew Thomas was feeling the pressure of cooking for everyone, so I didn't push it, but hey, it was after seven before I saw much action going on.  Meantime, I realized that I needed to pay a bill, or it would be late, so I ran back to my room to boot up (my living room is, for some reason, a big ole black hole for the new laptop).  Next thing I knew, Chris was in my room, asking what I was doing, whilst sitting on the exercise bike.  A minute later, I got up to leave, and realized that Chris was blocking my way and messing with my door.  He said he was fixing it, and I was getting a bit annoyed before he got out of the way and let me out -- a little claustrophobic, dontcha know.

So, I wandered down the hall and walked into the entryway.  Glanced toward the living room and saw a familiar profile.  One that wasn't supposed to be here.  WOOHOO!  Jillie was home!  Turned out that everyone but me knew that she was coming, cause she wanted to surprise me.  What a wonderful thing, since I haven't seen her for a few weeks.

So, we had dinner, which included Chicken Marsala, sticky rice (yum!), and string beans (oops, Seth forgot to snap the ends off, but they were good anyway), then settle in for a game of Apples to Apples.  Now, I don't know if you've ever played it, but it's a pretty fun game, and is good for some laughs.  We used to play it with the kids when we went camping, but it had been forever since I'd played.  Good thing, cause we had to explain it to Jim.  Here's kind of how it goes:  you get dealt seven cards.  Each card has a word or a phrase on it.  Someone pulls a card off a different (green) deck, and tosses it down.    That card has an adjective on it.  Each person then tosses out one of their cards, and the first player now has to go through and pick one of the tossed down cards that matches the adjective in whatever way they choose.  Like, say the green card is "Peaceful".  People throw down their cards, which are "war," "rivers", and "pond scum."  A sensible person might choose rivers as the best match, but in our family, it would probably be pond scum.  After the first player makes their choice, the green card is given to the person who laid it down.  The first one to get to seven green cards is the winner.  Now, everyone has their own idea of what they are looking for.  Personally, "ninja" is a sure one for me to choose.  Thomas would choose "Canada."  I can't remember what Jill's favorite card is.  We have to keep Chris' words short, because he had to really, really look when he picked up one that said "incense."  ::sigh::

And so it was the Jillie tossed down the green card "unforgettable."  I think I threw down "the 1920s."   Someone threw down "horseback riding."  Thomas tossed down "Leonardo da Vinci."  I don't remember; the other cards, because what happened afterward was so stinkin funny, I about peed my pants.

Jill, of course, chose "horseback riding."  Anyone who knows her knows that's a sure thing with her.  Thomas promptly brought both fists down hard on the table and shouted "WHAT THE HELL!  HOW IN THE WORLD IS THE SISTINE CHAPEL NOT THE MOST UNFORGETTABLE THING EVER???"

Now, I'm gonna give you a minute to let that register.

And yes, this is my "gifted" kid.

And now, for your dining pleasure.........Sethanese

So last night, Seth and I were chatting about food.  He was, as always, hungry, because he's almost 18 and is a bottomless pit.  Although I have found that the psychology of putting the healthy stuff on the eye level shelf gets him to eat the good stuff, he still couldn't find something to satisfy him.  This, of course, means that nothing was jumping off said shelf and into his hands.  I gave him a list of things that might work for a snack, and of course they were all shot down.  He finally said "I think I'm just bored with food in general."

I asked him if I needed to worry about an eating disorder.

Then again, this is Seth, whose take on the world is slightly off our orbit -- and I truly, truly love that about him, because as you can tell, he's more than a little entertaining.  So, we wandered into my room, where he jumped on the exercise bike whilst I checked my email.  I gave him the "hey, you're gonna be on your own next year, and so you need to get with the whole idea of actually cooking" talk.  Reminded him that one day, his significant other would greatly appreciate his cooking skills.

Keep in mind -- the boy can cook.  He has made such delicacies as home-made ramen (which he said was good) and candied bacon (which he said was awesome).  He can make some pretty good string beans, and he can properly boil just about any kind of noodle.  So yeah, he's got the basics, but he needs to learn how to put a real meal together, so I started showing him how to find recipes for things that interest him, using websites like food.com, foodchannel.com, and heck, just plain google.  Of course, we were searching for recipes that included, of course, ramen, but also found one he actually tried out for breakfast this morning.  It's progress.

All in all, he decided, FINALLY, that he needs to expand his horizons and start trying new foods.  He had asparagus last weekend, for the first time he could recall, and loved it.  And so it was that tonight he told me that he had tried guacamole today.  I can't remember where he said he got it, but I asked him if he liked it.  "It was ok," he said.  "It tastes like liquid lettuce."

Gotta admit, he's kinda right.

The Weather, According to Sethanese

So, here I am riding the exercise bike in my room, minding my own business, when The Spare walks in.  Mind you, I am watching my husband, Anderson Cooper, report from the areas affected by Hurricane Sandy.  The TV is showing a video of New Jersey which includes footage of a huge area of houses (do they call them housing additions in Jersey?) that are inundated with sand brought in by the storm.  Scary stuff, even if you are watching it from hundreds of miles away.

I said to Seth "can you believe all that sand?  That's just awful."  Seth replied "is that sand?  I thought it was snow."  "Nope, it is sand."  "What the heck?  Did the hurricane do that?"  "Yep."

We sit, silently watching the footage, and taking in the commentary.  Suddenly, Seth says "wait a minute.  What's the name of that hurricane again?"  "Sandy," say I.  "WHOA...........did they do that on purpose?"

Once it sunk in, I laughed for probably about twenty minutes.

Knock Knock

Seth told me yesterday, "hey Mom, some creepy guys came to the door and gave me this."  He handed me a card from the Mormons.  Oh heck, they found us.

19 years we lived in the other house, and we never once had a Mormon or a Jehovah's Witness knock on the door.  I used to joke with my boss, because she was a JW.  She would leave on Thursdays and say "I'm off to Bible study, so I can learn to knock on your door."  I would always point out that no JW had ever once knocked on our door.  She would smile and then ask for my address and say she was sending them my way.  They never came.

So how is it that after mere seven months here and they found me?  Well, not JW, but Mormon, but same difference when you already have the Jesus you want in your life.  I need to buy one of these,

but in the meantime, I'm going with the theory that they will go away after the election.  And Seth has been given instructions that should those "creepy guys" show up again, he can dismiss them with something along the lines of  "Don't bother.  We're voting Obama."

Dinner Isn't Done............

I took out a package of meat out of the freezer over the weekend, fully intending to take advantage of the grill.  I wasn't sure what it was at first, but the label said ribeyes.  I had bought them some time back when my boo was over making dinner, but it turned out he showed up with New York Strip steaks, so the ones I bought went back into the freezer.  Well, I didn't get around to cooking this weekend, because of course, he cooked, so the steaks sat there for the past couple of days.

Not one to let a nice slab of meat go bad, I figured I'd make 'em into fajitas for the spare to the throne.  He's not a huge fan of steak, but he does love fajitas, so that was the plan.  Then I realized that Thomas was off work, and my boo had made chili for me out at his house.  What better way for the boys to bond than over steaks?  It's a guy thing, right?  So I texted Thomas and asked him over.  Sure, no problem.

Next thing you know, he showed up at my house with a backpack.  He laughed and said he was pulling a Jim, because Jim tends to show up here with his own spices and pans -- he's particular about his cooking, dontcha know.  Thomas pulled out a cast iron skillet and a bunch of spices from his backpack, and said he was gonna show Seth how to cook like a man.  When I went out the door, there were three fat ribeyes on the cutting board, with the heir to the throne hovering over them.

Ten minutes later, my phone rang.  It was Seth.  I picked it up, and heard a horrendous wailing noise and Seth.  Seth yelling, to be exact.  Yelling "WHY IS THE SMOKE DETECTOR DOING THIS?????"

Sometimes, a mother just doesn't want to know.

My Oppa

My boo is obsessed with Gangnam Style.  When he says he watches it several times a day at work, I believe him.  He said he watches it when he needs a lift, and frankly, I'm pretty sure that if you don't smile when you watch Psy, you probably aren't human.



So here's how we spent our evening:  Seth decided he wanted meat loaf for dinner, so I made meat loaf and amazing mashed potatoes (shout out to you, Thomas, but you're off carbs anyway), green beans, topped it off with Seth's gravy, and we were set.  Well, my boo had had an uber busy day at work and didn't get lunch, so he stuffed himself at dinner, and promptly thought he needed a nap.  He wanted to get home at a reasonable work night hour, so I started cruising youtube to find him something energetic.

He loves him some Gaga, so first I played the ever classic, ever amazing "Bad Romance," which is his favorite.


This, of course, led him into his Gangnam Style fixation, so we started cruising various versions of it.  There are parodies, live versions, and even a Dr Who version, which is now posted on Seth's Facebook wall.  (It takes a long time to load such a short video.)



Somehow, in the middle of this, there was quite the exercise in trying to make "Bad Romance" lyrics that would work for a choir anthem.  And then he broke out in "Gangnam Style," almost verbatim.  To say I was impressed would be an understatement, but I'm not sure how that will play out when we're both in hell for the whole "Bad Romance" thing.  Somehow we figured that mentioning the disciples and the Jerusalem in a Gaga song might give us a nonstop trip to The Bad Place, but we sure did laugh over how it turned out, and I was quite blown away by his ability to lyricize on the fly.

And what, one asks, does "Oppa Gangnam Style" mean?  Well, Oppa can mean anything from older brother to older male friend.  Gangnam is the ritzy part of Seoul.  And Style is, well, style.  So basically, it's Sugar Daddy Stylin.  Like my boo:  a stylin' sugar daddy.  Well, if that shoe doesn't fit, then I don't know what does.

Yep. It's catching.

Yes, Sethanese is definitely catching. Here's our conversation in the car today. Keep in mind that I was very deep in thought.

 Seth: "Mom, what time is it?"

Me:  "Today?"

Seth: ::speechless:: ::blank look::

 All hope is lost. It's catching.